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Class _tJiAi. 
Book_ <S 



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Mht §niiU^ 0f 3txiU. 



A THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE, 

PREACHED IN 

EMMANUEL CHURCH, 

BALTIMORE, MD. 

THURSDAY, DECE3IBER 7th, 1865. 



7 

NOAH HUNT SCHENCK, D. D. 

jR E C T O R.. 



BALTIMORE: 

WM. K. BOYLE, PRINTER. 
1865. 






Most mighty God and merciful Father, who hast promisfd to maintain and defend Thy 
Church, so dearly purchased and redeemed with the precious Blood of Thy Son Jesds 
Christ; increase in His mystical Body the spirit of unity and love, and draw together 
Its members everywhere in one communion and fellowship in the faith once delivered to 
the saints; that as there is but one Body and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, so 
•we may henceforth be of one heart, and one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and 
peace, faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify Thee; through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 



SERMON. 

Prov. XX. 3. — "It is an honor for a man to cease from stbifb." 



The was has ceased. We thank God for peace. It was a bitter and 
bloody war. God grant we may have a real and remedial peace. The 
philosophy of religious hates and family feuds might have prepared our 
human judgments to anticipate all the horrors of civil conflict. I>ut the 
half was not told us. I have no hyena-taste for disinterring the mangled 
four years which the quick hand of time has gracefully urned or rudely 
earthed. Enough the conclusion, heroic or humiliating, as you will it, 
that the older the world grows, the harder men fight. Conversely view- 
ing it, shall M^e have the consolation, that principle is nobler, sacrifice 
more willing-, virtue more adamantine, and therefore that we are as cer- 
tain to enjoy the verities of peace as we have certainly endured the 
realities of war. 

Arguing from the multitudinous graves of Spottsylvania, shall we not 
derive at least the earnest of a heroic peace. God grant it. We can 
scarcely do less than accept the token. At all events, we bless the Divine 
Disposer that to the midnight tempest has succeeded the noonday calm, and 
that peace has come in our day. But before we go further, let ui 
remember that peace, though it "has sweets that Hybla never ^ new." is 
yet not ihe chiefest of lilessings. The church bells would have summoned 
the Christians of our land to a Thanksgiving Service, even though dove- 
eyed peace was still an exile. There is something higher and holier than 
peace, something which lights uf) with beauty even the sulphurous canopy 
of battle, and which brings a triumphant joy to the heart, even when men 
cry the fiercest havoc and let slip the most maddened of the dogs of war. 
This is the supremest occasion of gratitude for the nation and the citizen, 
even as it is the purest spring of prosperity and happiness. I mean the 
revealed face and extended hand of God in Christ. Here is the eminent 
•ground of gratitude. Before the spectacle of a reconciled God, a benefi- 
cent Father, a ready Redeemer, and an open Heaven, whether we have 
war or peace, famine or plenty, pestilence or health, we can lift up the 
song of rejoicing and pierce the very heavens with our pealing anthems 



of praise and thanksgiving. And now, on this day, we bless Thee, O 
God, for the gift of Thy dear Son ; we bless Thee for open Bibles and a 
free pulpit, we bless Thee for plenteous harvests, we bless Thee that we 
have thus far been spared the pestilence which has of late in other lands 
been walking in darkness and wasting at noon-day. We bless Thee for 
indications, neither few nor feeble, that the blessed religion of the Lord 
Jesus is speedily to be spread across the face of this broad continent, 
bridging the mighty rivers, spanning the broad prairies, arching the 
towering mountdns, and linking with the golden chain of the Gospel 
the surges of the angry Atlantic to the rolling billows of the placid 
Pacific. On this elevated ground of gratitude, the individual, the church 
and the nation should take their stand and always hold it. Here, lifted 
above the pigmy incidents of common life, we can see God as He is, and 
praise Him for what He does. Here we can thank Him for the retarn 
of national peace, appreciating its value, not only as related to national life 
and prosperity, but as still more and most importantly related to the welfare 
of the Church and the Soul; and so contributing, hol to the pride and glory 
of the State, as much as to the glory of Christ and the majesty of Heaven. 
With our immediate and most coveted blessings, then let us not be so en- 
grossed as to neglect appreciating the paramount anu permanent benefactions 
of God. There is a [)eace which the world can r,t itiier give nor take away, 
holding the soul in the sublime poise of spiritual rest amidst all the dis- 
tractions of earth, and committing it at death to the ecstatic repose of 
Heaven. For this we chant the soul's Gloria in li^xcelsis. To this, the 
nation's peace, the yellow harvests, the prevalence of health and pros- 
perity are as tiie preluding strains of an anthem. They are but as 
tributaries to the grandly rolling river. They aie but vestibules to the 
true temple oi' j^raise. They are but feeble ini^redients in the cup of 
Thanksgiving. They are the mere appetizing, elements in the soul's 
great banquet of joy. Tn view of this, how dwrirfed are all the objects 
which now so largely engross us. The great conflicts of our moral life 
are but as the gymnastics of childhooil. The drjaded or coveted alter- 
nation of prosperity and advei'.<ity are but as the dissolving views of 
cloudland beiore the mijestic movement of morning; the calm and storm, 
the shine and shadovv, the pain and pleasure of life in their fitful play and 
capricious intei change, what are they, in view of the pregnant realities of 
the higher life hwi-e and the heavenly life hereafter. Morbid are we in 
our tastes, low and grovelling in appreciation, false to the principles of 
our religion, and wanting in the noblest elements of gratitude, if we are 
not able to discriminate the things which chiefly concern God's glory and 
the soul's interests, and make these the proudest themes of praise; goinw 
back and chiming with Job his noble anthem to the ever-living Redeemer, 
and again blending with Habakkuk in that splendid Psalm where the 
melodies of praise mingle so sweetly with the under tones of humility 
"."Vlthough the i^a tree shall not blossom, nei her shall fruit be in the 
vines; the labor of the olive shall fail and the tield shall yield no meat, 
the flock shall be cut uff from the fold, and thert' shall be no herd in the 



stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my sal- 
vation." 

In the general Thanksgiving which at this hour rises from ten thousand 
altars, perfuming the land and rolling its volumed fragrance to the skies, 
let us be well guai'ded that there be no intermingling of the vapors of 
pride — the rank exhalation of our personal or national vanity. Since the 
war began the pulpit, the press, all schools of morals and all the voices of 
religion, as well as the organs of mere secular interest have united in the 
attempted teaching that this civil conflict, so humiliating to national dignity, 
so convulsive of the order of society, so derogatory to the principles and 
hostile to the purpose of religion, go disorganizing to industry and destruc- 
tive to trade, so disruptive in all its relations for the time, that this war 
was ordered of God to cripple our vaunting pride, and check our wild 
career of prosperity, and inculcate lessons of our own inherent weakness, 
and of our necessary and proper dependance upon Him who is our only 
strength and should be our chiefest glory Rut what is the result] Have 
these lessons been humbly received and faithfully applied ? Have the 
Nation's fast-days loosened the hinges of the knee as the days of thanks- 
giving have opened tlie mouth of rt-joicing And what, let me ask, is, as 
far as the great body of the people, and I had almost said of the church, is 
concerned, the spirit of this thanksgiving? Do we thank God that He has 
bowed us down in order that He might lift us up higher ? Nay, with well 
nigh one dead in every house, do %ve observe that the poeans of rejoicing 
are modulated to the sorrows of widowhood and orphanage Rising above 
all the wreck and ravasfe of war, emeruinsr from tlie bloodiest encounter 
known to history, here is a country realizing Milton's vision of "a mighty 
and puissant nation," and realizing moreover that which displays the 
shame as a foil to the glory, an increased national pride and an augmented 
disposition to trust to the might of the earthly arm. Were I on the plat- 
form, were I speaking to please, if my disposition was to ^'pr iphesy smooth 
things," these words would not have found a place; but I am in the pulpit, 
and my office is to teach, and I trust you will regard me none the less 
exalted in my patriotism, because I seek to be faithful to our Christianity- 
If it be an honor for a man to c<'ase from strife, that honor must be con 
ditioned upon his ceasing in accordance with the other teachings of God 
in this regard. True it is. that valour has been displayed which vies with 
the most daring achievemrnts of ^toried knights, armies have been levied 
in untold thousands and marshalled and disciplined for the delivery of 
battle with a skill equalling ihe generalship of the Cassars and Napoleons; 
the wager of war has been accepted and contested with a heroism such 
as romance had never chronicled. The art of war has been developed 
on land and at sea to such an extent, we trust, a^ shall make its hereafter 
use a terrific thought to wrangling nations. A strength has been mani- 
fested in this republic so mighty, a determination so fixed and fastened to 
the end, a renown has been achieved through the wisdom of the council 
and the prowess of the field so brilliant as to attract the envy of the world; 
in fact contributions in the material greatness of the land have been made 



from every quarter, even in the organization of broad territories and the 
development of untold mineral treasures, — while the crimsoned surges o^ 
war have heaved and rolled from ocean to mountain. And now the nation 
forgets the honors and the depletion and the debt of the struggle, but is sen- 
sitively alive to its victories and trophies. It forgets the bitter lessons of 
humility which the providenceof God inculcated, in a divided nation and an 
embittered society and a sundered church and a fraternal strife and ahun. 
dred gory battle fields and the thousands of eartfi rnounds where nameless 
heroes were buried along with the blighted hopes and crushed affections 
and broken hearts of those who in far off homes received the messages 
of woe. These things the country forgets, for in its teeming and busy 
population new links are soon formed, old gaps closed up, and sad 
memories shut out from view. Hut ah! how keenly concerned for the mag- 
nificence of the State and the colossal dimensions of the restored republic 
and the glittering valour and immense materiel which commanded the 
final success. Fellow-citizens of America you are the proudest people that 
ever made a thanksgiving to God. I bless Him however that there is grace 
lefi us even for that. But I beseech you, that accepting the truth of what I 
now present, you will add grace to grace and [jrove by your humility, your 
repentance, your enlarged faith and your sincere and single hearted grati- 
tude to God f )r the blessings of peace, that it is indeed an honor for a man 
to cease from strife. 

The world has a fair appreciation of the honors of strife In fact few 
honors are acquired except through some form of strife, be it with our 
own nature to discipline it up to tlie victory point or with the various 
adversaries who with us contend for the palm. The philosophy of success 
is illustrated by the strifes of the world. This idea is interwoven with 
the plan of salvation. We are exhorted to be valiant for the Truth, to 
contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, we are baptized 
into Christ's service not only as servants but soldiers, we are to strive for 
the mastery, we are to resist unto blood striving against sin. But not he 
that girdeth on the harness Is permitted to boast himself; rather he that 
putteth itoff. The honors are in the ceasing from the strife. And just so it 
is in the secular joints of men. Glory gilds nothing but final success and 
the graceful consummations of contest. While the tide of conflict elihs 
and flows the awards are suspended. The honors are in the hours of 
cessation. But in another sense honor flows to him who ceases from strife. 
To contend merely for the excitement of the contention or for greed, or 
for vain supremacy, is brutal. To cease when right is vindicated, truth 
entlironed, justice satisfied, peace conquered, is graceful, — and more than 
graceful; it is honorable to a man or a nation. Thus honors clustered 
thickly around the brow of Washington when he made his farewell address 
to the army, but more than this, and twining into a chaplet of unfading 
verdure and erjduiing fragrance when he finally resigned all official power 
and ceasing to be President, became immortal. 

I can obtain assent to the inscription on the face of this medallion of 
truth much more readily than to that which is graven on the obverse. All 



6 

the conventionalltifs cf pride and success array themseives aga list the 
idea that it is any honor for a man to cease from strife vinless he ceases 
triumphantly. All the pliilosopliy of life, embracing our notions of patient 
continuance, heroic endurance, Spartan firmness, — lit up with the radiance 
of noble resolve and projected through the defiles where persistent eifort 
cleaves the way to ultimate honors: all this breasts the idea of ceasing 
unsuccessfully and yet 1 onorably. But do men wisely theorize, and wisely 
develop their theories ni this regard. Is there not a fatal vice in the argu- 
ment of the philosophy of success. Is there not more than one Pyrrhus in 
history, are there not rnany such, who, in the range of our own present 
observation, we hear exclaiming amidst the- agonies of success, "one 
more such victory and I am undone." The moralist who described even 
the most brilliant vic'r 'y as only "the light of a cor'^agration," held 
before him the manifest difficulty of kindling such a flame and escaping 
unscorched from the fire. Na^, since man is a " bundle o^ contradictions'' 
and life a series of disappointments for good or for ill, and what the world 
calls success a bauble tossed by the whirlagig of fortune", are we not per" 
force as rational creatures lifted to higher levels of meditation, when we 
would discuss the true philosophy of success, than the earthy arena where 
the athletes of society contend for fading laurels. 

" Jotham became mighty, we read, because he prepared his ways before 
the Lord his God." Ard thus it is that the temper of the mind and the 
object of the life and the fidelity of the effort enter as elements in true 
success. But that success we may never see. The contestant may from 
high, yet hidden motives, pause in mid-career, and while men may leer 
and shug, the angels ol' God write down of him the honors he won and 
shall hereafter wear, by ceasing from strife. You well remember the pol- 
ished lines of Addison, 

"Tis not in mortals to cdmmand success: 

But we'll do more. iSempronious, — we'll deserve it — " 

Here is the appeal fron t'le triliunal of man to that of God This is ceasing 
in order to coimwer. "I confess, says a thoughtful writer, the increasirg 
years bring witii ihem an increasing respect for men who do not succeed 
in life, as those words are commonly used. Ill success sometimes ari.ses 
from a conscience too sensitive, a taste too fastidious, a self- forgetful nesa 
too romantic, a modesty too retiring. I will not go so far as to say, with 
a living poet, that the world knows nothing of its greatest men; but there 
are forms of greatness, or at least of excellence, which die and make no 
sign; there are martyrs that miss the palm, but not the stake; heroes 
without the laurel, and conquerors without the triumph." In all the 
departments of single- handed or aggregate effort we are called by the 
truth of the text to ob. m ve that there are honors in ceasing more lustrous 
with the unfading liglr than any which attach to headlong or dogged 
persistence, yea, honors greater and more graceful in the want than in the 
wearing of success. The greatest of poets while cautioning against the 
••ntrance lo a quairel, still enjoins that being in, thou " Bear 't that the 



opposed may beware of thee," — teaching, to my apprehension, more the 
dignity of forbearance and forgiveness than the brutality of blows and 
blood. Scripture proposes resistance unto blood only as against sin, and 
persistence to the end that we may be perfect though suffering. For the 
rest, it is an honor for a, man to cease from strife. When the war of the 
Revolution was closed, England was scarcely less honored than the Colo- 
nies, even in the common opinion of the world, by her cessation of hos- 
tilities. The martyr who ceased from strife only with the ending of life 
and surrounded by those who imagined and boastjd the triumph of burn- 
ing him and his principles together, though overwhelmed and consumed in 
defeat apparently, has his memor3' garlanded with honors — honors which 
are his, because of his sublime ceasing from strife. The soul, charged 
upon by the powers of darkness, infested by its own evil nature, 
beleaguered by temptation, scorned by the world, and exiled from com- 
panionship, condemned to doubt and to suffer and be still, has vouchsafed 
to it at the last when fidelity to God has been revealed in all its beauty, a 
pause and a translation, which ushers to honors with which the sufferings 
of this mortal life were not worthy to be compared. To such a soul the 
ceasing from strife is the token of enthronement — enthroned with Christ, 
and honored with Him, as brothers together in heavenly habitations. 

I have dwelt thus long upon the philosophy of my theme, not only because 
the analysis of the text demanded it, but furthermore, because 1 desired to 
prepare the wisdom of this Scripture for its application to our times and 
people. It is important for us to understand that the dangers of prosperity 
are at times the most fatal. We must learn that it is not only l\ie successful. 
ceasing from strife that is attended with honor and happiness. We must 
recognize the weighty responsihility which ?-ests upon the shoulders of 
success. And still further, let us face the truth that there is a ceasing 
from strife, even when martial glory reflects resplendently from a hundred 
hills of triumph, and victory perches proudly upon a thousand tattered 
ensigns, and the light of national prowess blazes high for the admiring or 
envying gaze of the world; even then to cease from strife, and winnino- 
with success if not awarded before, the p\nipathyof mankind for the 
principles at stake, even then the honors may be lost by forgetting humilii v 
and gratitude, by failing to exercise the offices of magnanimity and justice-. 

We, as a nation, have just now ceased from strife. To-day we meet in 
our churches to thank God, not only for "the blessings of His Merciful 
Providence," but also that he has permitted the achievement of peace. 
We offer to Him the incense of grateful hearts. We pierce the heaveiis 
with our anthems of rej(Mcing that peace has come, that banners rolled in 
blood are now furled behind the closed gates of Janus, that swords and 
spears are bemg rapidly changed to the implements of industry, and that 
songs of praise are now ascending where lately shouts of battle only rent 
the air. We bless God, that instead of the plains broken by the iron heel, 
and ploughed by tfie heavy wheels of war, and the harbors blocked and 
beleaguered and resounding only with the wild boom and echo of fierce 
artillery, now we 



8 

"See our plains, 
TJiabounded, waving with the gifts of harvest, 
Our seas with commerce thronged our hnsj ports with cheerful toil." 

We hless God that the war has closed, and beholding His hand in this, 
as m all history, we cannot fail as believers, in recogrnizino; the sweep of 
His arm, to bless him in all the resulting" consequences. We may not in 
the purblind vision of our proud or opinionated humanity be able to trace 
the trendings of the shore-line of His Providence, but we must, as Chris- 
tians, follow that line, humbly and gladly if we can, obediently and trust- 
ingly, whatever our preconceptions and desires. 

But in ceasing from strife we come here today, and taking our stand 
by the altar of thanksgiving, ask God whether it is indeed to be an honor 
to us that we have so ceased. This, as before intimated, is entirely con- 
ditioned upon the spirit in which this people receive the great blessing 
God has sent them, and the manner in which they address themselves t<> 
the discharge of those duties pertaining to victory and peace. Other na- 
tions have achieved national glory. Other nations have suppressed great 
insurrectionary movements of bodies of their people. Other nations have 
been safely guided through narrow straits and over foundering rocks, but 
never yet has a nation had such a w^ar or such a peace as ours. As a 
Christian people, a Protestant people, an enlighted people, a free people, 
we stand before God and the world with responsibilities such as never 
attached to a country, a race, or an era If "peace has her victories as 
well as war," we are peculiarly called to achieve tbem. Now let us ad- 
dress ourselves to the work God has prepared to our hand, and thus prove 
not only that we are sincere in our thanksgiving for peace, but thai we 
are disposed to earn the honors pledged to these who cease from strife. 

But have we really ceased from strife? 'I'he swoid is sheathed and the 
scabr)ard is hung to rust against the wall, we trust for many long voars 
to come. Is the peace for which We thank God a compelled and hollow 
truce, or is it a reality, — a rf)se plucked from the garden of the heart, and 
fragrant with sincerity] Are we done with our hates and evil speaking^? 
Is our code of morals inferior to rliat of the savages of our western wilds. 
who when they tuiry the harchft resume in all honesty the amenities of 
intercourse? Is n >t the Son ot" Pc^ce speaking hy the Holy Spirit, re- 
peating now wiiat tirsl he spake by the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah, an J 
saving "to the \o!-h give up, and to the South keep not back?" I con- 
gratulate you, Urethren of Emmanuel Congregation, I congratulate the 
Church and the country, that there are many and hopeful signs lo(»king 
to the restoration of torpid sympathies and the re-construction of broken 
ties. In the last lew months, I have seen hearts long estranged warmini; 
towards each other again with something of tfie former glow. Each 
week these signs of returning harmony are increasing, here not only, i>ut 
everywhere. God speed and prosper this blessed re-union of hearts. 
But I forg.'i not that I am addressing a congregation that has been pecu- 
1 arly constituted during the prevalence of our civil war. Bound by a 
cmmon tie to a commonly beloved altar, yet the distractions of ttie hour 



have divided those otherwise in sweetest sympathy, by a wide wall over- 
grown with the thorny vines of bitterness. But, beloved, let us make 
special record of our gratitude to Grod this day, that the barrier of which 
I speak has had no existence inside this fold or at the table of this com- 
munion. Representing the most hostile and conflicting elements of this 
great strug-glc, yet here you have sat side by side in common worship, lis- 
tening to the same gospel and bowing at the same sacramental board. 
Whatever your differences outside yonder church door, once within its 
welcome arch and all antipathies were ignored. Gf)d has signally blest 
us. The harmony of our Congregation has been unbroken, and its pros- 
perity undisturbed though the mad surges of war have dashed their 
ci'imsoned foam upon the very threshhold of the Church. Though 
thi-ough this protracted war our city has been spared the shock of armies 
in its streets, still there has been no community which has been more 
thoroughly convulsed, none where tht^ counter tides of opinion have raged 
more fiercely. From all this there has been blessed escape between the horns 
of this altar. Surely the Lord has been with us. If we had no other 
ground of gratitude to-day; this were (Miouffh With tlie preservation of 
this harmony, I must say in all candor, that I have had comparatively little 
to do. What was I among so many, nay, who was sufficient for these 
things? It has been the Lord's work, and His work alone, and blessed 
be His Holy Name. I have but one occasion of boasting, brethren, (and 
will you pardon me the seeming vanity.) anu that is, that I have 
passed through these trying times without bitterness. What I have seen 
and heard has moved me more to sorrow than to an^er. My heart has no 
record traced by the finger of this epoch which tells of alienated feeling 
toward any one of this flock appointed me to feed and foster. I can 
range the eye over this whole Congregation who have* kindly followed 
my lead through this four years wilderness of warring words and jarring 
interests, and unfaithful as I know 1 have been in many other and more 
important things it may be, still, if there be any weakening of sympathy 
or loosening of ties because of these angry issues, I must needs go outside 
my own heart to tind it. The great law of "Christian moderation" was 
presented for yu adnptiDn when iliis struggle began, as the only code 
worthy your following, and as especially the "w^ird in season" to this 
congregation. Some of us have attempted to square our conduct by this 
m! st wholesome discipline of soul, while others have found it more con- 
sonant with pride, or passion, or principle, or popularity, or patriotism, to 
give loose reign to feeling and utterance. "To his own master each one 
standeth or falleth." Let us leave the '"dead past to bury its dead," and 
giving ourselves to the duties of the hour, attempt lurlhur to cement 
broKen fragments and j)olish the tarnished surfaces of society and train 
up the vines which have been torn down and trampled. O, what a 
thrice blessed office has charity now ! Bearing the trophies of victory 
not VHuntingly but meekly, and taking the disappointments of defeat not 
vindictively but gracefully. I appeal to you thus to present a real Chris- 
tianity, appiopiiating to itself the honor which pertains to the cessation 



10 

of strife. I doubt not we have all something left to do before we lay our 
thank-offering upon the altar to-day, and before we can rightfully claim a 
share in the honors and joys of peace. In God's name and by God's 
grace let it be done and quickly. With peace and plenty and health 
smiling around us, with benignant skies showering the gifts that gladden 
and the grace that saves, what are we that aught should engross us but 
peace with our Maker and good will to our brother. 

The seventh King Henry, of England, prefaced his treaties with the 
words: "w^hen Christ came into the world, peace was sung; and when He 
went out of the world, peace was bequeathed." We commend this fact 
afresh to the consideration of our beloved Church. When this war began 
it spake peace to the excited elements. Now that it is ended shall not the 
Church speak more eloquently by example than it aforetime did by 
precept. The first to cease from strife should be the Church of Him who 
founded it as an asylum from the strifes of sin and sinful man. Right 
nobly, let us confess, has the pacific effort been begun, and we bilieve, 
even as we pray, that ere another twelvemonth has rolled, we shall have 
ao-ain a united Church. All this, moreover, through many difficulties. 
All this despite the obstacles which honest but misguided men are infer- 
posinof. The Church, to my mind, never displayed a more Christ-like 
temper than in the recent General Convention in Philadelphia. A similar 
spirit is actuating the responses to the action there and then taken, and 
we trust that the open hand reached out in Christian charily will be 
grasped in turn by ail, until every Diocese of our beloved Church shall 
be linked once more by the golden bonds of love, and all made one in 
Christ. Thus shall be emphatically vindicated at once the loyalty and the 
patriotism of the Church. Displaying an unswerving fidelity to the para- 
mount principles "bf Christ and the gospel, it were impossible for the 
Church to prove false to other obligations secondary to these, but conse- 
quent upon them. The charity and the catholicity of the Church's temper, 
has had a severe test during the past half year. At one time it seemed as 
thouo'h the cessation of strife in the State was the signal for it to begin in 
the Church. And at this moment there are those on both sides the ques- 
tion who honestly believe her attitude should be more unbending. We 
refer this to the overruling of the Great Head, who ordereth all things 
after the counsel of His own will, and who in rapidly re-uniting the lately 
separated elemtnts of our corporate Church, is not only getting honor lo 
Himself, but introducing it to full participation in tlie honors which result 
upon the ceasing of strife. We accept this as a token of blessing and as 
a God-given stimulant lo a truer unity, a higher and holier walk, a more 
energetic and valiant service. 

If this country is to have a real peace and all its honors, not only 
must society and the church cease from strife, but all the economies of 
our national life must be charged with the spirit and decorated with the 
displays of that "concord," which in the petition of our Litany is associated 
with "unity and peace." The statesman whose eye penetrates the surface 
of things, and whose broad judgment sweeps the scroll of history as well 



11 

as the principles of our humanity in maturing its decrees, rejects the com- 
monly used material of opinion found floating as waifs upon the troubled 
sea of politics, rejects the brief and exciting issues of the hour and the 
man, as false and often fatal elements of thout^ht and decision. He 
would teach us now that the lessons of the senate, the pulpit, the press 
and the hustings, bearing upon the cause of our mighty struggle, have been 
faulty, as not embracing the real casus helH; that behind the local irrita- 
tions and inter-stale conflicts of theory, behind even the great question of 
our relation to that portion of the African race dwelling in our midst, behind 
all mooted questions of strife and dissension, there stood a gigantic enemy 
to peace; born of the cupidity of man, and fostered by the wild ambitions of 
trade and the maddening desire for wealth and power, and finally developed 
in all its monstrous proportions concurrently with the development of the 
great American interests; and which sternly pointed to the different depart- 
ments of industry and the products of the varied sections, and the com- 
merce of diflPerent ports and the energy of different trade elements, as hostile 
each to the other, as clashing already with such fierceness as to threaten 
destruction, and as presenting a case of impossible legislatit)n upon prin- 
ci,)le8 at all equitable. Or in other words, that the interests of individuals 
in a land stretching from such broad parallels, and with such immense 
economies, were impossible to be preserved under a uniform legislation; and 
therefore the ultimate recourse of money-loving and power-loving man, to 
assert by whatever means the superior rights of self. Now, if this be at 
all a fair interpretation of the moving cause of our great civil struggle, 
we have disclosed another quarter, where, under the text, our appeal may 
well lie. But here, alas, we meet the dullest conscience. Still how vastly 
important that the country should at this time eliminate all the germs of 
dissension. If strife be not suspended in the place where the conflagation 
began, we are never safe from civil incendiarism. If the men ot mills 
and counting-rooms, of wheat-growing prairies and cotton-growing sa- 
vannahs cannot curb their cupidity, and build their business a little more 
on the foundation principles of their religion, we have little hope of the 
republic. Luxury on the one side and the bayonet on the other, present a 
fatal alternative to the country's future, unless the strife of business inte- 
rests gives place to the concord of a mutually benefitting industry. There 
is an honor greater than that of the "Merchant Prince," a dignity supe- 
rior to that of the "Lord of the Soil," a position prouder than that of the 
Master of a Million Spindles. God tells us what it is when he declares 
that "it is an honor for a man to cease from strife." Teaching these 
wielders of influence, that in their mad rivalry they are tearing down the 
fabric of the State to rear with the ruins a lower to vanity, teaching them 
moreover, that by their ceasing from what is indeed a senseless strife, 
theirs shall be the honor of buttressing and building higher the walls of 
the State, strengthening its gates and doubling its defences; and more 
than this, and most of all, they shall receive from God the honor with 
which He decorates the souls of those who cease from strife. That this 
is to be accomplished, we see, in the strange inversions of interest this war 
has, di recti V or indirectly, occasioned, in the peculiar diverj*ion of trade 



12 

into new channels, in the creation of new elements of traffic, in the dis- 
covery of new points and objects of industry and energy, in the changed 
relations of labor to capital, in the recent organization and rapid peopling 
of vast territories, in the linking together of the Atlantic and Pacific sea- 
boards by Telegraphs and Rail Roads, in the wonderful discovery of vast 
mineral and other rich resources in the bosom of the earth, in the unpre- 
cedented impulse given to commerce by the cessation of our domestic con- 
flict, and last of all, but most important of all, in the wonderful com- 
mingling of our population, — the great currents and counter currents which 
began to move with the removal of the military barriers, and which now for 
purposes of residence and of business, and of ambiiion are transfusing the 
elements of our social life and giving with startling rapidity a homo- 
geneity to a population which before the war was intensely sectional. This, 
under God will not only be the means of immense development to inte- 
rests heretofore denied a healthy growth, but will prove remedial to a 
thousand of the ills of Slate, — chit-f among which, will be the allaying 
of trade hostilities, and sectional heart-burnings. By these or by whatever 
means tliis glorious end be achieved, it is tlie duty, as it should be the 
glory oi' all men who love their country's weal, and would make sure the 
continuance of a Christian peace, to help each agency to its object and 
stimulate each occasion until it merges into blessed consequences. 

Will the day ever come when the politicians by ceasing from strife shall 
ac(iuire a little real honor for themselves, and confer upon the Nation an 
immense advantage. I mean not that little group of worthies, who, being 
statesmen, cannot be politicians. Bui aside from these, was there ever a 
country ancient or modern cursed as we are by these barnacles impeding 
the tjood ship's progress, these vainf)ires sucking the life-blood of the body 
politic, these parasites clinging to and deriving all their nutriment from 
the body and branches of this towering and wide-spreading tree? All 
agree that the y were the proximaie cause of the war. They did nothing 
to help it to an end. Nay, the war was their carnival, a season of cheap 
popularity and easy patriotism, a period of much credulity and many 
contracts. And now that the war is ended, shall they not have their 
rewards? I fear not, for there is no ending of popular infatuation. By 
tlie side of the great Captains and the men of true statesmanship, who are 
admired for their worth and venerated for their services, stand others to 
whom the country owes nothing but a certificate of infamy. In establish- 
insr the reitrn of order the mind of the country should free itself from its 
partizan projudices and inaugurate an era of discriminations So long as 
we use oifice only lor the dignifying of aspirants, we are placing a premium 
upon deinagogueism, we are perpetuating the race of political wranglers, 
and confirming the continuance of pestilential strifes. When we lengthen 
the term, and increase the emoluments, and in other ways augment the 
dicrnity of office we shall command the services of talent and virtue, but 
not till then. We ^an never expect the strife of the politicians to cease at 
their own instance. Men will not put from them the bread upon which 
they live. But there is a heavy responsibility upon the true tnind and 



13 

heart of the nation, at this juncture after the costly and ample experience 
of these recent years and in view of the establishment of a peace that 
means harmony and security, to adopt such measures as shall compel ces- 
sation of this petty strife of petty men. They can never be brought to 
see the honors of ceasing. Better men must help them or compel them to 
this end and earn the honors for God and the country. 1 propose nothing 
chimerical. A concerted public sentiment, a wise legislation and much 
prayer for the Divine guidance and blessing have in other times effected 
more than this. The mercies of the present and the peace of the future 
claim at our hands at least the effort. 

But. there are other disturbers of our peace; nnd in this aPttempt to 
prove our gratitude to God on this Thanksgiving-day by a ctimplete ceas- 
ing from strife, we should also prepare their epitaph. In a country so vast 
and so free as ours there will always be factions and fanatical elements. 
They are innocuous except as we afford them association with principle 
and purity. There is scarcely a vagary in morals that has not its aposth. 
Not a reresy but lias its votaries. Never an Utopia discovered, but 
dreamers throng to people it Each bubble blown by folly holds its 
audience of admirers patient until the bursting Let an ignis-fatuus but 
appear over the swamf)S of speculation and crowds rush after it waist 
deep in mire. VVe cannot argue that these are evils confined to the imme- 
diate victims. The strifes they engender are poisonous to the life of soci- 
ety. The questions they raise are detrimental to the public welfare and the 
common peace. And this, because audience is given when indignant 
virtue and outraged principle should command silence. To meet these 
evils we want more of" the stern morality of by-gone days. Men who 
tolerate the press that palliates or even publishes, the pulpits that ignore, 
the platforms that present these disorganizing or incendiary theories and 
theorists deserve the emphatic ostracism of all truth-loving, peace-loving, 
liberty-loving men and women. These are of the strifes from which we 
must cease, if the land is to be honored of God. 

Beloved, if the peace which Heaven has given to this nation be accepted 
by Christians as a token that we should cease from all our strifes, and if 
we feel an honest stimulant furthermore in this regard, because of the honor 
with which God has pleased to crown the act, can we close onr eyes to 
the necessity of razing the barriers which separate and strengthening the 
ties which connect Christians of different churches. The infidel Voltaire 
approximated truth more nearly than was his wont, when wriiing, "All 
sects are different because they come from men; morality is every wheie 
the same, because it comes from God." Visible Church life varies because 
committed to the administration of men. Not so the doctrine to which it 
is a Witness. Being truth it is unchangeahly the same The unity of 
material creation, the unity of the race, the unity of the thought world 
are conditioned by diversities almost infinite in variety. Thus in our 
worship and in our varied following of Jesus. In the "unity of the 
Spirit," we live, if we 'ive at all as Christians. In the diversities of our 
humanity we u-alh until we reach the golden gate. There we shall 'put 



14 

our garments by," to be eternally clothed upon of the same robe. If our 
faces are Zionward we are all walking together. But "can two walk 
together except they be agreed?" It is not essential to this that they have 
similar gait or garments, similar voice or features, but it is essential that they 
have "the same mind," "the mind that was in Christ Jesus." The law of 
love constrains them to walk together, as the law o{ Jaith proposes to 
make them companions for eternity. How, let me ask, is this duty dis- 
charged or rather how is this privilege enjoyed ? We have all doubtless 
regarded with much interest the efforts put forth by members of our com- 
munion to promote the true fraternity of Churches. On the one hand we 
have witnessed the experiment of attempted unity on the basis of similar 
organization, and on the other, upon the basis of common doctrine. These 
efforts at unity fail and always will, while men ignore the facts that eccle- 
siastical uniformity is neither designed of Christ nor desired by Christians: 
and furthermore that real unity is individual and elective, not to be legis- 
lated, much less enforced. The conflicts of Churches Hnd the strifes of 
sects and the dissensions of Christians are stumbling-blocks to society and 
a scandal lo the world. From this pulpit, consecrated to a catholic 
Christianity and a true unity upon the basis of brotherliood in Christ, I 
appeal to you, my Brethren, to break down your prejudices against those 
in our ( 'hurch and out of it, who differ from you in anything less than the 
essentials of salvation. Work together and walk together with all "who ' 
love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth." Love all who love 
the Saviour. This is "the fulfilling of the law." This is "better than 
sacrifice." This is the true schooling of the soul for admission to "the 
general assembly and Church of the first-born," in the f)lessed Jerusalem 
of promise. We have our conceptions of the pi-ace that is there. O let 
us prove our heirship by emulating it here. We know what honors there 
shall crown those eternally ceased from the strifes ot the world Await- 
ing that day and preparing for its coronations, let us expel from our 
Churches and purge from our hearts these weary, wicked strifes; the 
ceasing from which is the rolling away of the clouds of displeasure and 
the beaming full upon the soul the honoring smile of its Father and its 
God. 

In uniting with you to-day in thanking Grod for the return of peace, it 
has been my object not only to place upon the altar our offering of grati- 
tude, but to indulge such counsels as should enal>le us to appreciate our 
peace, enlarge it, preserve it, and be honoied by it. 

I cannot well conclude this discourse without reference to certain obli 
gations which peace has brought with it, other than those already discussed. 

What with the ravage of armies, the havoc of artillery, the devouring 
of the torch, and the long suspension of husbandry a part of our country 
presents a scene of desolation where famine in places threatens to follow 
the path of its ghastly forerunner. The fountains of finest feeling are 
already pouring their currents of Christian kindness in this direction, and 
we trust that the balm of noble sympathy may heal many a wound which 
the war has inflicted. The Churches have been, in instauces not a few 



15 

rendered unfit for worship and the pastors either alienated from their flocks 
or left in destitute circumstances to labor and suffer at their posts. It 
only needs that the story be truly told, that Christians, that all men who 
have a heart to feel, be moved by the tender constrainings of sympathy 
and tenderness, to recognize the responsibility which connects them with 
the occasion. 

Then rises to view, while the eye is turned in this direction, another 
and a weighty obligation. Here are more than three millions of people, 
by nature indolent, and by long usage dependent, suddenly introduced to 
the exercise of civil freedom. What restraints and what tuitions, what 
present helps and what hereafter legislation may be necessary to adapt 
this people to their altered relations, are problems as novel as they seem 
to be difficult of solution. The natural antipathies of the races only 
augment the difficulties to be encountered The government, the Church, 
and society at large and in all sections, are addressing themselves to the 
matter of immediate relief to the pressing necessities of the freedmen. 
How their destiny is to be worked out, is beyond the prescience of states- 
man or moralist. If religion had power to send them in numbers great 
or small as heralds of salvation back to the land of their origin, we should 
regard it as occasion of the liveliest gratitude. Meantime, their wants 
and their weakness appeal to our charities. 

On this Thanksgiving-day, we must also remember the necessity of a 
more active religion in the Church and in the soul, in view of the many 
neglects and the many flagrant sins incident to these years of internecine 
strife. 

We must remember our duties to those who, at their country's call, 
left their positions of quiet industry, to return, after veteran service, 
wounded and helpless. The wife, whose husband lives only in the 
thrilling tales of armed adventure, or on the page which records the 
number that fell in the fierce shock of the charge, or in the brave breast- 
i ng of the cannonade; the child whose father was lost in the whirl of 
battle, but leaving a memory that lives in those stories of heroism which 
men tell with quivering lip; these are your pensioners, ye who have a 
mind for patriotic thought, a heart for humanity and a soul for God 

This day opens to us many gates of Christian effort which the bayonet 
had barred, but which duty and privilege alike now invite us to enter. 
Let us occupy what ground we can, till all the fallow fields, repair the 
breaches and restore the vines to beautify the walls, rebuilding the waste 
places of Zion and enlarging the vineyards of the Lord, giving to the 
children of sorrow the garments of gladness, and tuning even the heart 
of desolation to an anthem of joy. 

The war has ceased. We thank God for peace. We would do more. 
We would bless Him for a peace that penetrates all the departments of 
our social, business and religious life, and welds our civil fabric indisso- 
lubly together. We cry "peace when there is no peace," if society is 
convulsed, the Church divided, the trade-world infested with hostilities, 
placemen and fanatics jostling the State and wrangling each other, re- 



16 : 

ligionists engaged in bitter riv!<lries, and all men more engrossed with the 
jubilations of triumph or the pains of failure, than with the sublime tuitions 
of this wonderful providence. There is work for us to do, more than 
the interchange of congratulation and the singing of Psalms to the praise 
and glory of God. Statesmen say there are greater questions before them 
now than those engaging attention while the war was in progress. It 
is so with the philanthropist and the Christian as well. Since God has 
given us peace. He has doubtless designed that we should achieve the 
victories of peace. Since we liave ceased from strife He demands of us 
that we strike for the honors of ceasing. We need them here to bless the 
soul and beautify the Church. We need them for testimonies to the 
world. We need them for reflecting to the militant church and tolling 
soul, the glories awaiting the final suspension of strife.^ 

Let faith bridge the future and stand we, beloved, in that august audi- 
ence where the Saviour and the soul make final settlement. Follow the 
justified and glorified Spirit as it wanders in ecstacy through the garden of 
God. There is a new song upon its lijjs, but the words are as old as 
Chtistianiiy, "1 have fouglit the good fight, I have finished my course, 1 
have k.^pf the faith; henceforth tliere is laid up for me a crown of righte- 
ousness." This is the Thanksgiving Hymn of heaven and eternity. It 
is the ending of the fight, the completing of fidelity, the finishing of the 
race. Alter these comes the crown. Foreshadowing all this, here is a 
crowji, proffered now to those who will cease from the useless and dis- 
honoring conflicts of the world. O let us have a real and remedial peace, 
pouring balm inio every wound and oil on every troubled stream. Then 
shall the country, society, the church, each have their jeweled crowns 
sparklitig with the smiles of God. Thus shall the Master honor those 
wh" consistently cease from strife now. in token and pledge of the sub- 
lime honors of the final award. 

Oh ! that the church and the country could be made to learn that as 
Peace is the reward subsequent, so is it the condition precedent to the 
righteousness which has salvation annexed. Eternity wilU emphasize 
with it^ realities as man can not with feeble breath, the spiritual sequence 
which belongs to iiHtions as well as to souls, that until their peace flows 
serenely as the liver, their righteousness can never be triumphant as the 
waves of the sea. 



O Almighty Father, the God of Peace and Love, we beseech Thee to enable us to 
put away from us all strife, envy and malice as becometh Thy people, and that our 
late trials, under the guidance of Thy Providence and Holy Spirit, may be overruled 
for the furtherance of the Gospel in this land and throughout the earth; all of which we 
ask for Jksds Christ's sake, our onlv Lord and Saviour. Amen. 



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